Some of the people who hate America’s Big Banks the most work in them every day

Some of the people who hate America’s Big Banks the most work in them every day

“It is heartbreaking to think that I was better off when I was 25 than now at 63.”

Brenda Goins, a relationship manager at US Bank, is one of hundreds of bank workers who joined together in Los Angeles last month to protest working conditions in the banking industry. A member of the Committee for Better Banks, a national coalition of bank workers, Goins was one of the workers who occupied the lobby of Wells Fargo’s LA regional headquarters, where the group attempted to meet with executives and delivered a petition of over 11,000 signatures to John Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo.

In a press release posted online by the Committee, Goins notes that her decades of experience in the banking industry have not ensured her dignity or financial security. Such sentiments were echoed by Khalid Taha, a 27-year-old personal banker at Wells Fargo, also quoted in the release. Taha says that bank employees involved in the protests are motivated by a variety of factors, including wage potential and mental health. “Since I started working at Wells two years ago, my blood pressure went up; I started suffering from insomnia and anxiety,” Taha explains. The bankers later marched across town to continue their protest at the Bank of America.